Though there are no more Canadian teams remaining in the Stanley Cup playoffs, many will still be tuning in to get their last fix of hockey before the summer. Those who want to make the games a little more “interesting,” however, will run into a problem: when placing a wager through a provincial lottery system, punters are required to bet on a minimum of three games (known as a parlay bet).

This especially becomes a problem as we enter the third round of the playoffs, when there is a maximum of two NHL games on the schedule at any time. Gamblers have the choice of either putting money on another sport (which they may have no interest in), or placing a bet through some other means, such as the thousands of grey-market betting sites available over the Internet. And many do: provincial lottery corporations lose an estimated $14 billion a year to offshore sports betting sites.

At the very least, it should be up to provincial governments to decide if they want to allow single-event betting

Such archaic restrictions make little sense. Ideally we would let private, regulated businesses act as bookmakers, as they do in the United Kingdom. But at the very least, it should be up to provincial governments to decide if they want to allow single-event betting — to compete with the offshore bookies, and to better serve the betting public.

In 2012, the House of Commons passed a bill that would do just that. Not only would Bill C-290, which legalizes single-event betting, be a windfall for provincial lotteries, it would also allow Canadian casinos to set up their own sports books to compete with those available in Las Vegas and on the Internet.<

But, much like the Reform Act, about which much has been written lately, C-290 has stalled in the Senate. Like the Reform Act, the bill passed with all-party support in the House; yet since then it has been allowed to languish — not just two months as in the case of the Reform Act, but for nearly three years. MPs from both the Conservative and New Democratic parties have urged the Senate to pass the bill before the summer recess — the last chance to pass legislation before Parliament is dissolved for the election in October.

If the Senate really did have strong objections to the bill, far better it should come out and say so, either by amending the legislation or voting against it. To be clear, we don’t believe the Senate should kill any bill passed by the House of Commons, but if senators must thwart the will of the people’s elected representatives, at least let them do so out in the open, where they can be held to account for their actions — so far as senators can be held to account for anything — rather than simply letting the clock do their dirty work.

Still, if we were betting people — and we’re no — our money would be on the Senate continuing on as it has.